My Fair’st Friend
The last time my sister Katrina was here, she was on her way back to our nation’s capital with her boyfriend Reid for New Year’s Eve festivities. We had a lazy brunch of eggs with guac and black beans, biscuits and jam, pancakes, and my granola with yogurt, which fueled enthusiasm for a campus tour, as it was Reid’s first time visiting our Academical Village. As usual, Katrina sparkled walking around campus (I, meanwhile, almost tripped over a fire hydrant trying to take pictures while jogging backwards, still glowing from having made enough food to best even Reid’s appetite).
Visiting the Rotunda, it was Reid who became the tour guide—do you know how many types of columns there are? I do. Now. (Four. Btw, doesn’t my friend John look dashing here? Truly, as if he must away on his next secret mission—)
Walking around to the front of the Rotunda, Reid surveyed TJ and
nimbly climbed the statue in about five seconds, to the bewilderment of the small children in strollers blinking up at the two men now towering over them. (Virginia, land of education, land of white men, some of whom can jump; crazy things happen at high noon, kids.)
Katrina shrugged her shoulders at me as if to say, he’s a climber, they do this, and anyway, you carb-loaded breakfast, before joining him.
(They waved at the kids, who will one day beg their parents to do the same, before climbing down.)
I think I had imagined the tour going a bit differently; John and I were certainly prepared to walk backwards and point with two fingers at landmarks; we contented ourselves with nodding in the general direction of the pavilions and the iconography of the “secret” societies, snickering in unison at the plastic raven in Poe’s Range room, and reminding Katrina and Reid that in Hooville Thomas Jefferson is referenced as though he wereis still alive. (They looked at us the way the stroller kids looked at them when they had TJ’s ear.)
Reid asked what the big building was, and we walked behind Alderman, where I took this shot. While I was focusing I paused, lowered the camera, and smiled at Katrina and her Pippi Longstocking socks; how grateful I am to have this sister and best friend who remains feisty as an activist, committed to her work on local farms with organic foodstuffs, creative as a documentarian, inspiring as a global translation coordinator of educational programs, and radiantly, piercingly alive.
I’m even digging the Flying Nun look here. Happy Birthday, my fair’st friend.
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Posted Thursday, January 18th, 2007, 9:58 pm * Filed in Photography, Travel. * . Follow responses through the RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
January 19th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
Kristen, my “sparkle” is clearly from the amazing breakfast and house-cured bourbon from the night before. it’s not everyday i get to embark on an insightful (and more importantly humorous!) tour of TJ land with such enchanting company. Thank you for the birthday wishes and kind words. To staying radiantly alive…
January 22nd, 2007 at 3:11 am
Well you know, I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but what the hell: they did want me to be the new James Bond, before they settled on that other fellow instead. But I couldn’t decide between Kristen and Kat as my choice of twenty-first-century Bond girl, so I just had to call the whole thing off. Happy Birthday Kat!